ON BASKETBALL.

Blundering Hornets face uncertain future

They will be staying in a hotel, getting room-service meals. They will board the bus to come to the arena together and dress in the visitors' locker room.

But when the Charlotte Hornets come to the United Center to play the Bulls on Tuesday, they will be visiting one of their 28 homes in the NBA.

"You try not to think about it and you don't want your players to think about it," Hornets coach Paul Silas said. "But when you're playing before sparse crowds and have all that uncertainty in the back of your mind, you do think about it."

Other than winning games, what the Hornets have been thinking about this season is how to pronounce "beignet," or whether you can buy a Lexus in Norfolk, Va., or when is the Humidity Festival in St. Louis, or whether to kiss the ring of the new governor of Louisville, Rick Pitino.

That's because the Hornets, in business just 13 years as an expansion team, are ready to move, which is something of a tradition for the franchise. Someone once counted 24 consecutive free agents the franchise allowed to leave before it re-signed Jamal Mashburn, who has been out much of the season with an abdominal injury.

Now, rebuffed in an attempt to get a new arena last spring because the community detests current ownership, the franchise is looking for a better deal in places like New Orleans, Norfolk, Louisville and St. Louis.

Reports are the Hornets could announce within days a move to New Orleans, which is expected to set off a battle among city officials, the NBA and Hornets ownership over relocation efforts.

"I have thought about this for months . . . over the last 2 1/2 years, actually," Hornets co-owner Ray Wooldridge said after a recent visit to New Orleans. "And I can't think of anything [that would prevent relocation.]"

This was before three Charlotte businesses last week promised $100 million toward building a new arena, and before Smithfield Foods of Norfolk reportedly said it would sign a naming rights deal worth as much as $60 million to the team.

The battle being fought in Charlotte is just one skirmish in the NBA's war--all of pro sports' war, really--to survive against colliding forces of a declining economy and increased costs for sporting events. Arenas such as Charlotte Coliseum, built just over a decade ago without luxury suites, already are outdated and owners are demanding new facilities.

Without substantial suite revenue and naming-rights deals, teams are having difficulty sustaining. The Hornets are said to have come close to missing payroll with attendance at historical lows.

Once one of the feel-good stories of pro sports, the Hornets led the NBA in attendance in eight of their first nine seasons. But management blunders, such as allowing virtually every star the team developed to get away, and ownership embarrassments, such as co-owner George Shinn's trial for sexual assault, has turned the community against the team.

It has been a classic example of the refrain often heard by disgruntled fans: Don't go to the games if you object or are upset.

Hornets attendance has plummeted since the lockout season of 1998-99 and now averages 11,006, 28th in the NBA, less than half the team's total just three years ago. They're another example of too much expansion to smaller cities that cannot support major-league sports in tough times.

The Vancouver Grizzlies, who came into the NBA in 1995, moved to Memphis this season. Minnesota almost moved to New Orleans in 1994. And now Orlando ownership says it will sell and the team may relocate to St. Louis, where hockey and arena owner Bill Laurie was rebuffed in his attempts to buy the Grizzlies.

"I'm not reading the papers," Hornets guard David Wesley said when asked about the new pitch for a local arena. "I don't want to know what's going on. I'm just waiting for everything to go down one way or the other."

Yes, there's a team to play games, but the Hornets clearly have been distracted by the uncertainty and by community indifference.

Charlotte is the only team in the NBA with more road wins than home wins and, along with the downtrodden Bulls and Heat, one of three Eastern teams with a losing record at home. The loss of Mashburn, the leading scorer last season, has hurt. But with an improved Baron Davis at point guard and Elden Campbell occasionally playing like an All-Star at center, the Hornets shouldn't be foundering below .500 and ninth in the weak East.

"We can't dwell on what we have no control over," Silas said. "We have to win some games."